Monday, April 25, 2016

Michael Voris, Detraction, and “Reporter’s Privilege”

… [F]or most of my years in my thirties, confused
about my own sexuality, I lived a life of live-in relationships with homosexual
men. From the outside, I lived the lifestyle and contributed to scandal in
addition to the sexual sins. On the inside, I was deeply conflicted about all
of it. In a large portion of my twenties, I also had frequent sexual liaisons
with both adult men and adult women. …

Since my reversion, I abhor all these sins,
especially in the world of the many[,] many other sins I have committed having
nothing to do with sexuality. I gave in to deep pains from my youth by seeking
solace in lust, and in the process, surrendered my masculinity.

I call it “interesting” because it’s neither shocking nor particularly
scandalous. Since I began blogging, I’ve encountered a few gay Catholic
apologists who, in the process of conversion or reversion, committed themselves to
chastity after having been sexually active for some time. Openly (if modestly)
revealing their pasts is an essential part of their apostolic efforts; it not
only establishes their empathy but their street cred. If Voris has spent little
to no time before this speaking of his bisexual past, it must be said in his
defense that LGBTQ issues has not been his particular focus: he’s had other
fish to fry.

Since then, kudos have been pouring out for Voris from all
over the blogosphere for the bravery and honesty of his revelation. Says
Melinda Selmys, “Michael absolutely has my prayers right now, and I will
happily be defending him against any detractors in the days to come.” Steve Skojec agrees:
“The folks at Church Militant and I do not see eye to eye on some very
important things. But today, I stand
with Michael Voris against those who would use public detraction to destroy a
man’s reputation[bold type in original].” Artur
Rosman, Robert
at Sorry, All the Clever Names are Taken, Fr.
John Zuhlsdorf — many bloggers, many of whom don’t always agree with Voris
or the approach he takes, have added their names to the well-wishers list.

“On Very Good Authority From Various Sources”

I would stand with Voris, too … if I weren’t concerned about
this part of his confession:

We have on very good authority from various sources
that the New York archdiocese is collecting and preparing to quietly
filter out details of my past life with the aim of publicly discrediting me,
this apostolate and the work here.

Words matter.
Semantics means calling a spade a spade because it isn’t a shovel. Note that
Voris says “the New York archdiocese” … not
“an official with the archdiocese”, not
“a person connected with the archdiocese”, not
“an office of the archdiocese”. The entire chancery, all the way up to Cardinal
Tim Dolan, is implicated in this skullduggery … by “various sources”, who may
be in the chancery or who may be only second- or third-degree connections
feeding back rumors.

According to the bio on the
Church Militant site, Voris was a reporter, anchor, and producer who won
four Emmys during his time with CBS News. On the one hand, one may hope this
means he has the experience and the knowledge to suss out good sources from dubious
sources, and to distinguish good intel from bad. On the other hand, the “very
good authority from various sources”, translated from reporter-ese, means: I’m not going to reveal where I learned this
information … and I don’t have to
reveal it!

There’s the rub: In New York
Times Co. v. Sullivan (376 US 254 [1964]),
SCOTUS effectively disemboweled defamation and libel laws by imposing a
standard of actual malice. The “actual
malice” standard requires that plaintiff show the defendant knew the statement
was false, or that he acted “with reckless disregard of whether it was true or
false”, even if the statement was made in a paid advertisement. “Actual malice”
is such a high standard to achieve that, in practice, few defamation and libel
actions prevail. As well, forty states and the District have “shield laws”
protecting journalists’ sources; while SCOTUS hasn’t made a definitive ruling
on the “reporter’s privilege”, it has been upheld at the circuit court level by
nine different courts.

The
Sixth Amendment gives the accused the right “to be confronted with the
witnesses against him” in criminal proceedings. The media, however, can destroy
reputations, businesses, careers, and lives through stories based on anonymous
sources, with little fear of legal reprisal. Even reporters’ word choices, the
way they frame their stories, can affect how the public perceives the stories’
actors, creating reactions out of proportion to the actual evidence presented. And
in the fifty-two years since Sullivan,
the news industry has changed in ways such that journalists no longer have the
time or the inclination to wait until all the evidence is in and verified.

Who’s Detracting Whom Now?

Respect for
the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause
them unjust injury [cf. Code of Canon Law, Can. 220]. He becomes guilty:
— of rash
judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation,
the moral fault of a neighbor;
— of detraction
who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings
to persons who did not know them [cf. Sirach
21:28];
— of calumny
who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives
occasion for false judgments concerning them. (Catechism of
the Catholic Church § 2477)

In an earlier draft of this post, I questioned whether Voris
was prudent in revealing his past before any attack had materialized. For one
thing, the Church’s doctrines do not require us to actively seek out martyrdom,
whether it be the real chopping block wielded by Daesh or the virtual pillory
provided by the Internet. For another, the bravery of such admissions is
somewhat attenuated by the support one can count on from one’s virtual tribe;
in the most egregious cases, it can become an exercise in what The Blogger Who
Must Not Be Named calls “bravely
facing the applause”. Third, even with the vocal support of your tribe,
the Internet can give no assurance that your confession will never be used
against you — one day, it may come back to bite you hard on the butt.

Now I believe an equally important question is this: Did
Voris have a moral right — as opposed
to a legal or constitutional right — to level such an accusation against the
Archdiocese of New York, and by implication Cdl. Dolan, without exposing his
sources? “To have a right to do a thing,” said G. K. Chesterton, “is not at all
the same as to be right in doing it.” According
to the Catholic Herald, a spokesman for ADNY called the allegation “absolutely,
100 per cent untrue”; the burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused. Without
substantiation, we only have Voris’ word against the archdiocese’s.

Cui bono? How
could ruining Voris’ apostolate benefit the archdiocese in any meaningful,
substantial way? Who stood to gain from his public humiliation, and how? Without
answers to these questions, we have no reasonable motive, and therefore no justification
to suspect such a move would be approved by Cdl. Dolan or any other archdiocesan
official.

Detraction and the Public’s Need to Know

I can appreciate the pain and humiliation it cost Voris to
admit his past sins publicly. Whether the confession itself was prudent is
debatable, albeit understandable if
someone had planned to expose his past first; in the end, though, it was his choice
to make.

However, Voris did himself and us a disservice by not holding himself
to a higher standard than that afforded the secular media by Sullivan and “reporter’s privilege”. His
confession may have “taken the wind out of [the archdiocese’s] sails,” as
Skojec says; however, he hasn’t shown to my satisfaction that their sails were
hoisted in the first place. Voris could have made his confession without naming
the archdiocese as his would-be persecutor. By not revealing his sources and
their bona fides, he opened himself to the charge of detraction, if not
calumny.

Melinda Selmys was right not to repeat the accusations against
Voris she found in her combox; for that I definitely applaud her. It’s time
that we who write and speak on behalf of the Church stop allowing the malicious
to use us as tools to smirch the reputations of others from the safety and
comfort of total anonymity, whether it be a single individual, like Voris, or
an institution, like the Archdiocese of New York. Regardless of whether the
public has a right to know X — such a right, if it exists, is not and
cannot be absolute — we should be concerned with whether the public has a need to know X, and whether we have a moral duty to reveal it (videCCC §§ 2489, 2492).

We have no need of shocking revelations to tell us that
Michael Voris is a sinner, because our Church teaches us that all of us are sinners. Saint John Paul
II called us an “Easter people”, and said “‘Alleluia’ is our song!” But our
symbol is the Crucified Christ, and our prayer is Kyrie eleison.

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